MRS Gold Medal for Ian Brace
07 May 2024

MRS has awarded Ian Brace its Gold Medal, the organisation’s most prestigious honour, in recognition of nearly 40 years supporting the institutions which protect and promote the research sector and for outstanding work supporting the charities which serve the sector.

Since joining MRS in 1975 Ian was a Trustee for over 20 years and Chair of the Market Research Benevolent Association (MRBA) where his achievements included: 

• Introducing the MRBA Skills programme to enable those unable to afford professional development opportunities financial support to invest in their careers.
• Enlarging the scope of the charity to enable more help and financial assistance to a wider group of people.
• Creating the Corporate Patrons and Friends Scheme to improve funding routes into the charity.
• Helping and providing financial assistance to 100s of research practitioners who have been struggling financially.

Ian is an active founding member and Executive Member of the Charity, the Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR), an archive set up by senior members of the research sector to create and preserve a living, digitized archive of high quality research data and commentary for use by the public, business and academia.

His roles at MRS included 15 years as a member of the MRS Market Research Standards Board and its predecessor the MRS Professional Standards Committee. During this time, in addition to contributing to the on-going standards agenda, Ian also served on one of the MRS Investigations Committee investigating disciplinary complaints and authored the MRS Questionnaire Design Guidelines which continue to be recognised as the key best practice guidelines for questionnaire design. Ian authored the textbook, Questionnaire Design: How to Plan, Structure and Write Survey Material for Effective Market Research (2008) as part of the MRS Market Research in Practice series published with Kogan Page.

The Gold Medal is reserved by MRS for only the most significant contributions to the sector. Ian will be one of just 18 winners of the award since the award was first introduced 42 years ago. This year’s Gold Medal will be presented at the MRS Excellence Awards Lunch on the 7 June 2024. The lunch will also celebrate the latest MRS Fellowships, Honorary Fellowships and Posthumous Honorary Fellowships, a recognition of senior professional status and major contributions to the research and insight sector.

Ian Brace, winner of the MRS Gold Medal, comments: ‘’More than 50 years ago, whilst hunting my first job, a chance encounter with an acquaintance led to an introduction to the head of research at an advertising agency. He in turn introduced me to key people in the research agency world and I became a market researcher. From that kindness onwards it has been important to me to give back what I can to the sector, but I never could have believed that it would lead to the wonderful honour that the MRS has now bestowed.

"The research sector is stimulating, exciting and challenging and I have felt that virtually every day of my career. But we mustn’t lose sight of standards of behaviour, looking after our people and bringing on the next generation and I hope to have made a contribution in all of these areas. My time as Chair of the Market Research Benevolent Association was extraordinarily rewarding, knowing that we could improve the lives of our colleagues in trouble. Through the Professional Standards Committee/Standards Board I was able to contribute to ensuring the sector remained respected by users and public alike. And through training sessions for MRS and working with Bristol Business School I hope to have contributed to the development of the next generation of researchers.

“The award of this medal is an amazing honour for which I am extremely grateful to the MRS, but which could not have been possible without all the people with whom I have worked and who have supported me over the years.”

Jane Frost CBE, Chief Executive of MRS, comments: “The Gold Medal is the highest honour that MRS can bestow - any recipient will have to have given exceptional and extensive service to the sector and MRS. As a colleague of Ian’s on both the MRBA and AMSR, I have witnessed personally his tireless dedication and his willingness to shoulder any work “to get the job done“. So many people have reason to be grateful for that hard work.“